'Source Available' Is Not Open Source  ## Metadata - Author: [[Dries Buytaert]] - Full Title: 'Source Available' Is Not Open Source - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [open source, licensing, sustainability, DHH] author: Dries Buytaert source: dri.es reference: [https://dri.es/source-available-is-not-open-source-and-that-is-okay] date created: 2025-12-09 00:00 --- # 🏷️ Title: 'Source available' is not open source (and that's okay) ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Include links cited in or relevant to the article. ## 📝 Summary - What happened. - David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) released Fizzy under the O’Saasy license and called it “open source.” Critics, including Matt Mullenweg, objected because O’Saasy restricts competing SaaS offers, violating the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition. - Why it matters. - The conflict exposes confusion over “open source” and highlights a deeper, unresolved problem: economic sustainability and “free riding” in open source ecosystems. - Key stakeholders. - DHH and the Ruby on Rails community, Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress ecosystem, Drupal and its contributors, companies monetizing open source, and open source maintainers broadly. - Risks and tradeoffs. - Diluting the meaning of “open source” risks trust and coordination; overly rigid purism risks ignoring sustainability pressures. New “source-available” licenses may protect maintainers but sacrifice some freedoms. - Bottom line. - “Open source” has a specific, community-defined meaning that must be respected, but the real work ahead is designing sustainable models—possibly including “source-available” licenses—rather than relabeling them as open source. ## 📖 Main Content - Explain the core arguments in plain language. - The article opens with the recent dispute between DHH and Matt Mullenweg. DHH calls Fizzy “open source” despite using the O’Saasy license, which forbids others from running a competing SaaS. Critics point out this conflicts with the OSI definition that requires allowing such uses. When challenged, DHH dismisses the OSI definition as “some shit people made up” and asserts, “Open source is when the source is open.” - Matt responds by insisting that “open source” is a term with a specific, long-established meaning, comparing misuse of the label to North Korea calling itself a democracy. The author agrees: thousands of people have refined the OSI definition over decades; using the label while ignoring its rules exploits community labor and reputation without honoring its governance. - The article stresses that, while the definition debate is important, the more urgent issue is sustainability: companies frequently profit from open source without contributing proportionally to its development and maintenance. This free rider problem affects WordPress (e.g., the WP Engine dispute), Ruby on Rails, and Drupal alike. - DHH can experiment with a new license because Fizzy is early-stage; WordPress, bound by GPL for over 20 years, cannot practically change licenses. That asymmetry helps explain differences in their strategies but not in their shared underlying concern: keeping major open source projects viable. - Add sourced context and define terms. - The article notes that arguing about labels while ignoring sustainability is like “firefighters arguing about hose lengths during a fire.” Definition alignment is necessary for collaboration, but it does not solve funding, staffing, or governance. - The author connects to an earlier “Makers and Takers” post, where he proposed licenses that “encourage software free riding” (broad code availability) but “discourage customer free riding” (allow maintainers to keep some commercial advantage). O’Saasy fits this pattern: code is visible and modifiable, but SaaS rights remain with DHH’s company to support a business model. - The piece argues this setup is “defensible and generous” but must be honestly labeled: it is “source available,” not open source. Clear terminology preserves trust while allowing experimentation in business models. - Note uncertainties or contested claims. - The long-term viability of “source-available” approaches like O’Saasy is uncertain; they may or may not strike a durable balance between openness and revenue. - It remains unresolved how to systematically distinguish between companies that genuinely cannot contribute and those that simply will not, and which interventions (social pressure, incentives, regulation) most effectively change behavior. - The author candidly admits not having a complete solution after two decades of work; the article is framed as a call for better questions and experiments, not a final blueprint. ### 🗒️ Notes - The article opens by situating the author’s 20 years of work on open source sustainability and framing the DHH–Mullenweg conflict as a familiar pattern of tension over definitions and funding. - DHH launches Fizzy, calls it “open source,” and uses the O’Saasy license, which prevents others from offering competing SaaS. Community members note this restriction conflicts with the OSI’s requirements for open source licensing. - When pressed, DHH dismisses the OSI’s authority, calling its definition “some shit people made up” and reducing open source to “when the source is open,” stripping the term of its governance and principles. - Matt Mullenweg publicly pushes back, arguing that you cannot simply ignore the OSI definition and likening misuse of the term to North Korea calling itself a democracy—clumsy rhetoric, but aligned with the need for shared terminology. - The author emphasizes that “open source” is not a vague marketing idea; it is an explicitly defined concept refined by thousands of contributors over decades, and using the term while discarding its constraints exploits that collective work. - The conflict is further contextualized by DHH’s recent appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast, where he appealed to the ethics of open source while criticizing Matt’s handling of the WP Engine dispute, raising the question of which “spirit” of open source he invokes if the definition is arbitrary. - The article shifts focus from semantics to sustainability: many companies profit substantially from open source projects without sharing the burden of building and maintaining them, which creates systemic strain and resentment. - This free rider dynamic appears in multiple ecosystems: in WordPress (e.g., hosting companies benefiting disproportionately), in Ruby on Rails, and in Drupal, where large companies often do not contribute in proportion to their gains. - DHH, with a new product, can test a novel license like O’Saasy to protect SaaS revenue, whereas Matt, stewarding a long-standing GPL project, is effectively locked into that license and cannot realistically alter WordPress’s terms. - The author criticizes the spectacle of influential leaders debating definitions while the community faces urgent sustainability issues, using the metaphor of firefighters arguing over hose length as a house burns. - The piece reasserts that clear definitions matter because open source collaboration depends on shared understanding of rights and obligations, but insists that the decisive factor for long-term health is sustainable economic and governance models. - The author notes that in Drupal they have tried mechanisms like contribution credits and directing work toward supporting companies, which help somewhat but fail to fully resolve contribution imbalances. - He revisits his “Makers and Takers” proposal for licenses that allow code-level free riding but limit “customer free ri - Summary: Dries is the Founder and Project Lead of Drupal and the Co-founder and CTO of Acquia. - URL: https://dri.es/source-available-is-not-open-source-and-that-is-okay I have spent twenty years working on open source sustainability, so watching a fight ignite between Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson and WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg this week felt uncomfortably familiar in a way I wish it didn't. David Heinemeier Hansson (also known as DHH) released a new kanban tool, Fizzy, this week and [called it open source](https://world.hey.com/dhh/fizzy-is-our-fun-modern-take-on-kanban-and-we-made-it-open-source-54ac41b6). People quickly pointed out that the [O'Saasy license](https://www.fizzy.do/license) that Fizzy is released under blocks others from offering a competing SaaS version, which violates the [Open Source Initiative's definition](https://opensource.org/osd). When challenged, he brushed it off on X and said, "You know this is just some shit people made up, right?". He followed with "Open source is when the source is open. Simple as that". This morning, [Matt Mullenweg rightly pushed back](https://ma.tt/2025/12/dhh-open-source/). He argued that you can't ignore the Open Source Initiative definition. He compared it to North Korea calling itself a democracy. A clumsy analogy, but the point stands. Look, the term "open source" has a specific, shared meaning. It is not a loose idea and not something you can repurpose for marketing. Thousands of people shaped that definition over decades. Ignoring that work means benefiting from the community while setting aside its rules. This whole debate becomes spicier knowing that [DHH was on Lex Fridman's podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ) only a few months ago, appealing to the spirit and ethics of open source to [criticize Matt's handling of the WP Engine dispute](https://youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ&t=20506). If the definition is just "shit people made up", what spirit was Matt violating? The definition debate matters, but the bigger issue here is sustainability. DHH's choice of license reacts to a real pressure in open source: many companies make real money from open source software while leaving the hard work of building and maintaining it to others. This tension also played a role in [Matt's fight with WP Engine](https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem), so he and DHH share some common ground, even if they handle it differently. We see the same thing in Drupal, where the biggest companies do not always contribute at the same level. DHH can experiment because Fizzy is new. He can choose a different license and see how it works. Matt can't as WordPress has been under the GPL for more than twenty years. Changing that now is virtually impossible. Both conversations are important, but watching two of the most influential people in open source argue about definitions while we all wrestle with free riders feels a bit like firefighters arguing about hose lengths during a fire. The definition debate matters because open source only works when we agree on what the term means. But sustainability decides whether projects like Drupal, WordPress, and Ruby on Rails keep thriving for decades to come. That is the conversation we need to have. In Drupal, we are experimenting with contribution credits and with guiding work toward companies that support the project. These ideas have helped, but also have not solved the imbalance. Six years ago I wrote in [my Makers and Takers blog post](https://dri.es/balancing-makers-and-takers-to-scale-and-sustain-open-source) that I would love to see new licenses that "encourage software free riding", but "discourage customer free riding". O'Saasy is exactly that kind of experiment. A more accurate framing would be that Fizzy is [source available](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software). You can read it, run it, and modify it. But DHH's company is keeping the SaaS rights because they want to be able to build a sustainable business. That is defensible and generous, but it is *not* open source. I still do not have the full answer to the open source sustainability problem. I have been wrestling with it for more than twenty years. But I do know the solution is not renaming the problem. Some questions are worth asking, and answering: * How do we distinguish between companies that can't contribute and those that won't? * What actually changes corporate behavior: shame, self-interest, punitive action, exclusive benefits, or regulation? If this latest fight nudges us away from word games and toward these questions, some good may come from it. — Dries Buytaert, 'Source Available' Is Not Open Source, Dries Buytaert, 01kc2p3efk6a3r5z0wv0y4g371.